


the next best thing

by ingwertee



Series: codas: season 11 [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Season 11, Uncle!Mickey, coda: 11x02, mickey & the gallaghers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingwertee/pseuds/ingwertee
Summary: “Playing dead?” Tami asks the man on the ground, hands on her hips.Mickey’s eyes fly open and he blinks a few times, first at the sun, and then at Tami.“Oh, hey.” He says. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ dead.”--Mickey helps Tami decrease the property value of her home.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: codas: season 11 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046920
Comments: 14
Kudos: 246





	the next best thing

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this rare pairing of two characters who have said maybe two words to each other on screen.

Tami finds him in the backyard of the Gallagher house a few days after Franny’s birthday, sprawled on his back in the grass.

It’s a hot summer day, hardly any clouds and a bright sun. Franny looks like she’s got the beginnings of a sunburn on her arms, but it’s too early for her to notice yet. She’s absolutely beside herself, giggling. Mickey’s massive toy gun in her small hands.

“Playing dead?” Tami asks the man on the ground, hands on her hips.

Mickey’s eyes fly open, and he blinks a few times, first at the sun’s bright rays, and then at Tami.

“Oh, hey.” He says, nonplussed. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ dead.”

“You looking after her today?”

“Nah.” Mickey shakes his head, props himself on his elbows. “Debbie’s here.”

“Wanna give me a hand with something?” Tami asks.

Mickey scoffs, starts to sit up.

“No!” Franny protests, and she charges over with the gun. “You’re dead!”

“I’m dead, I’m dead.” Mickey relents, laying back down. “You got me.”

“Dead!” Franny falls into giggles again. She plops on the grass next to Mickey, starts poking him in various places on his arms, his chest. “I shot you there and there and there and there.”

“You’re a good shot, Franny.” Tami says, and Mickey snorts at this but doesn’t say anything. Keeps his eyes focused on the blue sky.

“Anyway.” Tami clears her throat. “Lip’s out, and I could use a hand. Ian said you weren’t busy?”

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Help with what?” he asks finally.

“Uh, you know those flowers Lip and I planted in front of our place in the spring?”

Mickey shrugs.

“I need a hand getting rid of them.” Tami says. “Neighbors are giving us shit.”

“They’re flowers.”

“Yeah.” Tami sighs. “Yeah, that’s the problem. They looked too good. Increased our property value.”

“Oh,” Mickey says, seems to consider this perspective. Then: “Okay.”

“You’ll help?”

Mickey shrugs. “I’ve been playing dead for, like, an hour, so yeah. Whatever.” He reaches out, pats Franny’s leg. “Game’s over, kid. Go annoy your mom.”

“Over?”

“Over.” Mickey stands up. “I’m alive again. See? Just like Jesus. Go see what you mom’s up to.”

“Franny, what do you say?” Tami asks before she can stop herself.

“Thank you, Uncle Mickey!” Franny says, and she wraps her arms around his legs.

Mickey shoots Tami a panicked look, eyebrows furrowed. “Okay, uh.” He gently pulls her out of the hug. “Sure. Whatever. Get outta here already.”

\--

He doesn’t really know Tami. He thinks this is why he says yes to helping her. They’re not really at the stage yet where he can tell her to fuck off and for her to know there’s not any bite behind it.

He can count on one hand the number of times he’s even spoken to her, the first being at his wedding, when she’d come up to him and Ian and hugged them and said she loved them, like she really did, like she’d known them her whole life. And Ian had nodded, had hugged her back, and Mickey had just stared at her and tried to remember who she was. Most of their conversations since have been like that, with Mickey trying to figure out exactly where Tami fits in. He guesses she must be a somewhat permanent fixture in Lip’s life, what with the baby and all. She had yet to leave, anyway, even after Lip’s relapse.

But mostly Tami sticks by Lip if she’s ever over at the house. Sometimes she talks to Debbie. Sometimes to Ian. Never to Mickey. What did she have to say to Mickey? Better yet, what did _Mickey_ have to say to Tami?

But he stands in front of her home now and stares at the large, spray-painted penis and then at Tami’s expectant smile and then back at the penis and he thinks, maybe he should go back to playing dead.

“Okay, so maybe it’s only funny to Lip and me.” Tami says with a shrug. She hands Mickey a shovel. “I’ll take one side, you take the other?”

“‘Kay.” Mickey says. He goes over to a small bush, starts pushing the rocks out of the way.

\--

“It sucks, you know?” Tami says, when they’re finished. Mickey sort of awkwardly sits on the front steps next to her. He feels like it’s the customary thing to do, but he’s not sure he wants to have, like, a conversation. She’d offered him some beer and he took it and now here he was, trapped.

“I loved those flowers.” Tami continues. “Picked them out and everything.”

Mickey wipes some sweat from his face.

“Next house I live in will be fucking magnificent.” Tami says. “I’m talking hedges. Rose bushes. The whole nine.” She takes a sip of water. “You ever think about your next house?”

“‘Next’ house?”

“Yeah, like where you’re going to live in a few years.”

Mickey gives her an incredulous look. “No,” he says.

“Oh? Okay, whatever.” Tami says. “I just thought… Lip told me Ian always has some sort of plan for the future.”

“Yeah, well, that’s Ian.” Mickey says. “Always looking to the next best thing.”

“You aren’t?”

He scowls. “It ain’t… when you put it like that—” He sighs. “Fuck it. Forget I said anything.”

“No, tell me.” Tami says. “I want to know.”

Mickey shrugs, at a loss for words. “Look. Guys like me? This is it. Right? I mean, I’m married, I’m outta prison, I got a roof over my head, I know how to get money if I need it, I got a…” He pauses, uncomfortable. “I mean, you know, I ain’t completely on my own. So. You all might be lookin’ for the ‘next best thing,’ but for my money, this is it.” He shrugs again. “But people gotta have dreams and shit I guess. Keeps them outta trouble I guess.”

“You wanna stay here for the rest of your life.” 

Mickey gives her an indignant look. “Stay here instead of locked in the slammer? Yeah, that ain’t a hard choice.”

“Those are your only two options?”

“Or dead. I could also be dead."

“Jesus.” Tami runs a hand through her hair. 

“Everything ain’t all sunshine and roses.” Mickey says.

“No, I get that.” Tami says. “I do. I was just thinking that you reminded me of Lip.”

“Yeah, well, Lip had a one-way ticket out of here and he fucked it up.” Mickey says. “Like I said, some of us aren’t meant to leave.” 

“And Ian?”

Mickey looks down. “Same with Ian.” He swallows the rest of his beer. “He coulda made it. I woulda been happy for him, too, ‘cept I wanted him here with me. Then I got arrested. That’s a long story.”

“Well, tell it to me sometime, okay?” Tami says. “You and I are the new guys in the family; we gotta stick together.”

“Me and Ian have been family for a long time, man.”

“Okay, fine, I’m speaking for myself, then.” Tami says. “Can we agree to check in with each other, sometimes?” when Mickey looks unsure, Tami adds: “I can’t visit my family right now, consider this me begging for some non-Gallagher company every once in a while.”

Mickey laughs. “Okay, Jesus. Whatever.”

“Ugh, thank you.” Tami says. “You, me, Sandy. We’ll start our own club.”

“Can’t wait.” Mickey mutters.

“Look—” Tami says, pointing towards the end of the block. “Speak of the Gallaghers and they will appear.”

Mickey follows Tami’s outstretched arm to see Ian approaching, hands in his pockets. Back from work for the day. When he reaches the outside of Lip and Tami’s place he stops in his tracks.

“This place looks like shit.” He says.

“Then our work here is done.” Tami says, standing up. “You can thank your husband for that.” She squeezes Mickey’s shoulder as she leaves, heading into her home.

“Defacing property?” Ian asks.

Mickey smiles, goes over to greet him. “Saving the neighborhood, more like.” He pulls Ian into a kiss, feels some of the tension leave Ian’s shoulders.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Starving.”

“C’mon.” Mickey says. “Let’s get some grub.”

“What were you and Tami talking about?” Ian asks, taking Mickey’s hand in his own as they walk back to the Gallagher home.

“Fuck if I know. Think she wants a friend, man.” Mickey says.

“She wants to be friends with you?” Ian fails to hide his surprise.

“Yeah. That’s what I fucking said.”


End file.
